McGILL BIRD OBSERVATORY

WINTER POPULATION MONITORING

Week 10:  January 2-8, 2006

Welcome to the McGill Bird Observatory weekly report.  Click here for a complete listing of our archives.  Comments or questions are welcome at mbo@migrationresearch.org

PICTURE OF THE WEEK:


Freezing rain added a thick crust to the snow last week, and some branches remained
coated with ice into the early part of this week. 
(Photo by Marcel Gahbauer)
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Special thanks to Wildlifers in Baie D'Urfe for donating the seed to stock the feeders for MBO's Winter Monitoring Program - click here for information about the store.

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THIS WEEK

THIS WINTER

2006 TOTAL

SITE TOTAL

# birds (and species) banded

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173 (11)

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5053 (92)

# birds (and species) repeat

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98 (5)

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893 (41)

# birds (and species) return

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6 (2)

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78 (14)

# species observed

18

45

18

170

# net hours

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66.5

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6422.1

# birds banded / 100 net hours

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260.2

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78.6

Note: table does not include nocturnal banding (owls)

Bander-in-charge:  Marcel Gahbauer
Assistant:  Shawn Craik

Notes:   Three times this week we planned to put up the nets for a banding session, but each time the temperature was several degrees colder than forecast and we decided to err on the side of caution.  However, at least some interesting observations were made during our visits.  The Rusty Blackbird was back on Sunday, singing at length, and demonstrating a surprising boldness in going to the mixed seed feeder while we were standing only a few metres away.  A bit later the same morning, we noticed that the Common Redpoll flock now numbers 28, and were impressed to see 12 of them hanging on the nyjer feeder at once.  Also of note, a banded Red-breasted Nuthatch was seen near the feeders, likely the same individual banded during the early part of the 2005 Fall Migration Monitoring Program and seen sporadically since then.  With milder temperatures forecast over the next week, we hope to be able to report on the first banding efforts of 2006 in next week's report.

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